


The Buck Hills Cave Incident

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, casefile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:04:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16214894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Written for the 50 States of Sex challenge: Virginia. NSFW, obvs. This is based on a real newspaper report in the Bells Cove Coronet about the Buck Hills Cave in Virginia.





	The Buck Hills Cave Incident

Honestly, she didn’t think he would show, but here he is, in that black leather jacket and the turtleneck that, in the failing light, renders the cut of his jaw sharp enough to make her exhale so sharply that her lips dry out. After reading the small sign at the entrance to the cave system, he stands close enough that she catches a whiff of his toothpaste and she licks her own teeth while admiring this version of Mulder, the one whose outfit is all James Bond but whose expression is pure eight year old boy.

She pulls out her flashlight and he copies her move, flashing his in a full arc and back round to illuminate the narrow crevice between them. “This better be worth it, Scully. I’m missing a…”

“I know, a date, Mulder. You’ve been telling me for a week but this…this is an even greater phenomenon than either one of us enjoying a social evening. Besides,” she says walking into the dark, gaping mouth of the cavern, turning and running her own flashlight from her feet and back up to rest under her own chin and says, “there are mysteries in here that only you should uncover.”

He shrugs his backpack higher, tugs at the tight black wool at his throat and strides towards her. “Take me down, Scully.”

Inside, the air is thick, like it’s made of the breaths of the thousand visitors before them. It’s bitter, sticking to the back of her throat and making it itch. The fine hairs on her arms prickle even under her jacket and she shudders as they go further in. Before the first turn, she’s wondering what on earth made her do this. What kind of perverse jealous streak would make her want to trek underground into a cave system just to stop Mulder from going on a date? It’s the kind of stunt he would pull. Had pulled. The Jersey Devil case springs to mind and she shudders again, at the memory of that awful lacy top she’d worn, although it was a damned site more interesting than Russell, Ryan, Rob, or whatever the poor guy’s name was.

“Where did you find this place, Scully?” Mulder’s voice cuts through the air and in the dim light cast by the edge of the arc of her flashlight she sees him. Fuck, he’s hot in black. He’s hot in silhouette. By the side of her. Behind her. In front of her. And now she has a truly visceral understanding of just why she arranged this cave party.

“In a cold case file, Mulder. It was sent to us, an email. Didn’t you read it? Or were you too busy working out what to wear for your big date.”

“This is a cold case?” He’s striding towards her, fired up no doubt by her assertion as well as the evident blank in his memory.

She lowers the beam of her torch and lets her vision become accustomed to the dark. His proximity to her sets her off shivering again and he reaches a hand out to her shoulder. “You’re cold, Scully.” He leaves a long enough pause for her to open her mouth to start to tell him she’s just fine, when he adds, ”want me to warm you up?” And grins as he squeezes her upper arm. By reflex, her nipples tighten and she looks down. A mistake, as he follows her gaze, and lifts his flashlight between them. “My, Scully. You must be freezing.” He turns away and walks on and he leaves an “or something” echoing between them.

The tunnel they’re in narrows and he walks slower, inspecting, touching and peering at the sides of the cavern as they progress. “You still haven’t told me what the mystery is.”

“And yet you came anyway.”

He leans towards her and whispers something in her ear that sounds like “Not yet,” but she can’t be certain because a rustling above them startles her and she ducks as dozens of bats fly loose, squealing and screeching. Her flashlight rolls away, spinning light in coils around the cave floor.

“Shit,” she says, hands clawing at her hair.

Mulder laughs, kicking her flashlight back to her. She gathers it and herself as he hauls her up. “Afraid, Scully? I never would have imagined.”

“I’m not afraid, Mulder. They simply took me by surprise.”

“And you don’t like to be caught off guard, do you?”

There’s a faint noise from deep within the cave chamber, where the bats had flocked and she strains her hearing. “At least I didn’t fly off into the darkness never to be seen again.”

“Is that what happened here?” he asks, his smile dropping away. “Did someone disappear?”

She nods, taking a deep breath and smoothing back her hair. “A young couple, Alice Liew and Michael Bertoli came here on what their friends described as a ‘dare date’. On 31 October last year, they entered the cavern, and that was the last time anybody heard from them again.”

“A Halloween mystery? And I presume a ‘dare date’ is where a couple pushes each other to undertake some kind of challenge during a social occasion. Wonder what their dare was?”

She knows. But will she tell him?

“Was it to have sex in as many creepy places as they possibly could?”

Of course, he would guess.

“Sounds like my sort of date.”

She wonders what kind of evening he originally had planned with the mystery woman. She shakes out a dismissive laugh and continues her story. “Only this time, the dare seems to have gone horribly wrong.” She walks past Mulder, admiring the increasing number of stalactites on the roof. “The file also describes two other similar cases, although those couples made it out to tell their stories.”

“Were they dirty?” He taps the side of the cave and there’s a hollow thud. “Do these walls have ears? Or eyes?”

She folds her arms around her. “This cave system may not have sentience, but it does hold secrets inside, Mulder. It was once described as a vast underground kingdom and had the potential to be a huge tourism mecca.”

“But?” he asks, brushing his hand from her lower back to her ass. She hears his intake of breath and there’s a moment that passes where his hand remains, tentative, as though he’s waiting for her to pat it away. She knows she should, but she doesn’t. “But, the caves are said to be haunted.”

His fingers are sliding lower, curving over her ass and she groans. Actually, she doesn’t, but it sounds like her and Mulder obviously thinks it was her, because he’s encouraged by the noise and he closes the gap between them.

“How so, Scully?”

“Both couples talked about a compelling force, but they were also fairly inebriated.” He manoeuvres her around and she’s pressed against the wall, his arms either side of her. “They spoke of a rising pressure, feeling disorientated, a funny smell in the air.” His knee slips between her thighs and his hands slide to bracket her neck.

“Kind of like a bitter minty smell?” His voice is like treacle against her jaw and then he pours himself into her mouth, kissing her before she can agree with his description and all the while the low keening is getting stronger and stronger. His thigh against her mons is eliciting delicious sparks of pleasure that radiate outwards and trap any sense of reason from passing into her brain. There’s a welling heat in her head too, a gentle pulsing.

“That’s not me,” she finally whispers as he starts a slow trail of kisses down her neck. She’s regretting the choice of jumper but Mulder is instantly resourceful and he unhitches her sweater from her jeans and slithers his urgent hand underneath to find the cup of her bra.

“Still cold, I see, Scully.” She should be telling him to keep his hands to himself. They shouldn’t be doing this. They’re partners. He has a date. Had a date. Why did he choose her instead? It makes no sense. His hands on her breasts make no sense. Strike that, they make perfect sense. Her skin is stippled with longing, panting almost. This…this isn’t right. But it’s so right. There’s a long, resonant moan and he starts to chuckle but with a snap of his neck he too realises that it isn’t her. His fingers are still toying with her nipple through the satin of her bra and the moaning echoes from the guts of the cavern, lilting and waning. “When you said this place was haunted I thought you were just trying to turn me on.”

He’s hard against her midriff. “I would hazard a guess to say that it worked, Mulder,” she says, glancing at the bulge in his jeans. 

His face is cast in shadows and his pout is seriously attractive. “I’m sorry, Scully. I was out of line.” Before she can protest, he pulls her top down and scoots back a little, contrite. Kind of. “I feel kind of strange…it’s like there’s a different atmosphere down here, like there’s something loose. I can’t decide if it’s my subconscious at work because of what you’ve told me about the case, or if it’s real. Do you feel it too? Please tell me it’s not just me.”

She does. She feels it in the way her chest is rising rapidly, the way her skin is humming, the way her hair feels electrified, the way her fingers are itching to scrabble under his turtleneck and pull at his chest hairs. But she didn’t invite him here to fuck him. Did she? Not really. Well, not within the first 200 yards of the entrance. But there’s a feeling in here. Something compelling. Something…

A sliver of rock falls from above them. Then another, from the side, but it doesn’t fall, it just slithers back in place.

“This is like Lyda and Maurice’s house, Scully.”

There’s a flurry of flapping wings from somewhere deep inside, a susurrant rushing, rocks are popping in and out.

“When do we get to the part where we play up to all our neuroses and come to the cold realisation that we have absolutely no romantic chance with anybody in the real world?”

“If we end up shooting each other, I’d say we’ve got serious dating issues,” she says and places her hands on his deliciously solid pecs, attempting to ground herself. The ceiling shakes and rumbles. Mulder grabs her arm just as a chunk of the roof falls behind them. He pulls her further into the tunnel, following the beam from his torch. When the rumbling is over, they take stock and flash their lights back towards the entrance. There’s a deep black void.

“I think we might be trapped, Scully. Is this what happened to Alice and Michael?” He pulls out his phone. “And no service. Of course.”

“There was no evidence of a cave-in,” she says. “They just didn’t come back out. Authorities looked for days but some were…too frightened to carry on the search.”

“Frightened by what? What’s the history here? What is the deepest, darkest secret of the Buck Hill Caves, Scully?” He sinks to the floor and pulls her down too. There’s a heat emanating from his body, radiating to her. She leans against him and he lays his hand over her thigh. She’s fairly humming with pleasure at his touch again. That smell twines itself around her nostrils. Faintly menthol.

“Hearing you tell me ghost stories is the best date ever,” he says, running his thumb along her jawline. “You are so very beautiful, Scully. In this light, in this setting. I’m…sorry, that…was wrong…no, I meant it, it wasn’t the wrong words, it’s the wrong thing to say…shit.”

She covers his hand and pulls it up to her waist. She smiles at his distress. “It’s okay, Mulder. I invited you here, knowing the story and you dropped your plans to come with me and now we’re stuck and I’m pretty sure this is not exactly what you thought was going to happen tonight.”

“Well, not exactly,” his lips trace where his fingers had run and she shivers. Her head is pounding but his touch is welcome, a salve for her. “Tell me the rest of the story, Scully.” 

Kiss me for the rest of the story, Mulder, she thinks. But she shakes herself loose and begins. “The story goes that a young boy, Jake Fitzgeralds, and his friend were paid to explore the caves by Colonel Henry Parsons who’d heard there was a strange, enticing beauty down here.”

“Hmmm,” he moans and slides his hand towards the front of her pants.

“What the boys reported was crystal caves, lakes and waterfalls, exotic cave flowers and miles of spectacular tunnels.” He unbuttons her fly and slips two fingers under the band of her panties, tracing a line down and parting her with considerable ease.

“Spectacular tunnels and enticing beauty sounds amazing, Scully. Tell me more.”

She wriggles under his touch, setting his fingers into the exact spot. She can barely gather enough breath to speak. “A working party descended, ready to explore.” His lips are latched onto her neck and the other hand is brushing her breast. Finally, he frees her nipple and she flicks her head back in silent prayer. The rough texture of the cave walls traps her hair and she feels it split and break as Mulder teases her. She’s forgotten where she’s at in the story and the keening wail has slipped away. The only sound is her and Mulder’s breathing and she thinks it’s quite beautiful.

“There’s something about this place, Mulder. It’s alluring, it’s so peaceful and serene.”

A ripping scream crashes through the air and they jump to their feet. The sound blazes around them, guttural and desperate. They stand back to back, turning in a slow dance, trying to find the source. Her pants are loose around her waist and she tries to button her fly with one hand.

“Who’s there?” Mulder’s voice is bold in the sudden silence. “We’re federal agents. Show yourself.” He’s swinging the light of his torch around. She’s fingering her weapon but in her gut she knows there’s nobody else down here. It’s all in her imagination. It’s just a story…

Another screech. “We’re armed,” she says, pulling out her weapon.

The wailing ramps up and then lowers to a constant hum around them. Mulder’s hand has found hers and his touch is sending showers of sparks through her skin. She spins round and kisses him, hard. He drops his backpack and flashlight and pins her to the cave wall.

“Fuck, Scully.” And he’s yanking off his jacket and unbuckling his belt. “Is this happening? Are we really doing this? If you don’t want to…I wasn’t expecting this. When I created the file…”

Her jeans slip down her legs and she’s pulling up her top. “You created the file?” Her breath is coming in hard spurts. She should be pissed at him. She should be mad that he set this whole thing up. “I can’t believe it.” She kisses him again and he runs his palms over her bare midriff, rolling a nipple between his fingers. “Your date?” she pants, “was that a joke too?”

“You’re not a joke, Scully. You’re fucking amazing. You’re serious and clever and stern and funny. You’re my friend…” She pulls back and he shakes his head, serious for a moment. “My best friend but I want more.”

“So you let me think you were going on a date to test the waters?”

He bends to take a nipple in his mouth. “Uh-huh.”

“And what would have happened if I hadn’t have taken the bite?” His tongue is rough against her skin and she pulls at his hair, holding his head closer. The low keening is a background track now, a mood setter , almost. “You even set up a ghetto blaster in here?”

“Nuh-huh,” he says, releasing her nipple, leaving her bereft. “I promise you that the noises are not my doing.”

“What? But the case…the reports…that was just you making it up, wasn’t it?” She feels her skin shrink against her bones, gooseflesh breaking out.

“I might have embellished the article I found in the archives of the Bells Cove Coronet about the Phantom of Bucks Hill Cave. I might have added the part about the missing kids and the dare date. But the basic facts remained. The caves are haunted by the spirit of a woman who wails and cries from deep in the cavern.”

The moaning increases again and they cling to each other. “Haunted,” she says. She knows it’s madness, it’s just a fear response elicited by thoughts embedded in her brain. She’s here with Mulder and the cave is not host to a wailing spirit. A good geologist would be able to identify the source of the noise – an air pocket or a narrow crevice or plates rubbing against each other. A deep moaning rises around them and she shudders.

“Where’s a good geologist when you need one?”

Mulder bites the delicate skin below her nipple as he heads south to her waistband. He tugs at it. “Nobody knows why she’s crying, Scully. But some folks say she is mourning the love of her life, a man who didn’t know she existed and her resonant moans are the embodiment of her unrequited love. They’re kind of sexy, don’t you think? Those moans. They sound like…”

His nose digs into the softness of her lower belly, his chin scratches at the front of her panties so that the fabric shifts up and down, creating unbearable friction. She moans.

“You,” he says, chuckling against her.

There’s a booming rumble and more debris falls from the roof. They scrabble to their feet and run deeper into the cavern, into the darkness. The wailing is thunderous as the tunnels close around them, twisting and turning. It’s a good ten minutes before the view before them lightens.

Mulder’s flashlight picks out the crystal cavern sparkling before them. A waterfall cascades, like stars sparkling. The roof is alight with twinkling golds, silvers, bronzes, mineral anthodites shaped like flowers. Below is a lake, set off by gently curling steam. There are iridescent greens and lilacs, shrouded in a soft glow that is utterly mesmerising.

“Oh my god,” Scully says, her voice barely audible above the roar, before it settles and she adds, “this is beautiful.”

The moaning swirls around the water, rising and falling like slow waves. Mulder’s hand slips into hers and she falls against him.

“The water is wailing on the rush of wind from that crevice behind it,” she says, guiding the flashing the arc of Mulder’s torch towards the narrow slit. “Listen to it. The waterfall sounds like a woman’s cries, it’s an echo chamber.”

“Spoilsport,” he whispers into her neck.

They stand for a while watching and listening as the glistening waterfall splashes and the pearlescent lake laps at its confines and the cave roof shimmers with its mineral treasures. The minty smell has been replaced by a warm brackish scent.

“Mulder, how are we going to get out of here?” Do I want to get out of here? she thinks languidly. The whole point was to seduce Mulder, wasn’t it? She came down here in flirty overdrive and now she’d had a taste and yet here she is asking to leave.

His flashlight runs up and down her body, and in the half-light she sees how hungry he still looks. She pats her hair down.

“We’ll think of something. We’re intrepid FBI agents doing our FBI thing. Besides, if we don’t show up in the morning for Skinner’s audit meeting, he’ll send out his crack team of agents to find us, just so he can chew out our asses.”

She looks at the lake and it’s truly a wonder. The muzzy feeling in her head is thick and now her body is wrapped in a kind of post-sleep fatigue that is heavy and delicious in her limbs, makes her want to sink under the water naked and…

“Scully,” he murmurs on the quiet end of a moan, “Do you think, in your medical opinion, that if we take the waters, it will clear our heads?”

“Take the waters, Mulder?”

“You know, like they did in Victorian England spa towns. Did you know there’s a Register of Bath, Scully? In the book, there are over 200 accounts from visitors who claimed the warm spa waters cured them of various ailments. Gout, sciatic, palsy.” He’s tapping her hip and his lips are warm on her cheek.

He starts to remove his clothes, stretching his arms over his head so that the dark line of hair under his navel thins and his biceps flex, limned by the cave’s glow. She does the same, and outlined in the magical colours of the cavern, they step down into the lake hand in hand.

The waters are warm, gently washing around them. Mulder swims to the centre and a shaft of light falls around him, bathing him in dripping threads of gold. The water is opalescent greens and blues and the cave walls sparkle. On the rush of wind, the moans rise and on the still the cavern is silent save for the shush of their limbs in the lake.

Mulder takes her by the waist and kisses her. He’s hard against her abdomen and she tips her pelvis back and forth, thigh between his. Even in the water she feels her own wetness building. Her nipples crush against his chest and he paddles them to the side, where there’s a gentle incline, for anchorage. Pinning his hands to each side of her, his mouth teases her exposed skin from forehead to the swell of her breasts sitting just above the surface. She rests her head back and stares at the impossible beauty. In her aroused state she wonders if the phantom-woman ever had the pleasure of making love in these waters. Maybe she’s crying because she didn’t have the chance?

There’s a moment of quiet between them, when they are just looking into each other’s eyes and even their breathing is undetectable. The waters are still. The cave is silent. There is just them. It’s such a small moment, but its meaning is as cavernous as their surroundings.

“How are the waters, Scully?” he says eventually.

“I’ve a feeling they’re going to get hotter, Mulder.”

She brings her legs up to wrap around his waist, heels digging into his ass. He lets his head rub against her, a slow dance back and forth in time with the gentle lapping of the waters. Her moaning is soft but she can’t help it, it’s like some force is bringing it from her chest. His face is buried in the juncture of her neck and shoulders and as his lips press harder, he slides into her. At the fullest stroke, he nips at her collarbone. Her skin tingles and tightens. She presses her heels deeper into his flesh. Around them, the wailing grows, swirling across the roof. Mulder moves faster, his cock slipping back and forth. He cups her ass, she shifts her feet over his shoulders, changing the angle of their fucking, allowing deeper penetration and with each upward thrust his cock meets her cervix with just enough pressure to make her gasp with pleasure.

She’s practically half out of the water, lying back on the damp lichen and the combined sound of the water lapping and their wet skin slapping consumes her hearing. She pants out little moans as he slides in an out. It’s unbelievable, she thinks, of all the ways she’s imagined this, a mother-of-pearl cave lake did not figure. It’s more than a fantasy. It’s a sensory out of body experience. Her arousal is building, her toes flicker, her calves tighten, her entire lower half is filled with years of unspoken lust and it’s ready to explode.

“Mul…” she cannot find the power to say his name in full.

“Scu…” he grunts back and lets his cock do the talking, thrusting so deep that his balls crush against her perineum sending shockwaves of ecstasy and pushing her into a rippling climax. The air fills with a low keening moan and she lets it settle before realising it was her and not the phantom. She’s never been a screamer, but she’s never come that hard.

Mulder comes in juddering, powerful pulses and she watches his face, the way his eyes squeeze shut, his lips hang open, his brows lower. When she opens her eyes, white lights flash across the cave roof and voices rise and fall on the motion of the lake. Deeper than the Phantom’s voice, though. There are footsteps and the scratch of static.

“Shit,” she says, “somebody’s coming.” Mulder is still moaning into her ear, telling her all the things he still wants to do to her. “Mulder, we have to be quiet. Someone’s coming.”

She struggles to sit up to move Mulder back into the water just as a small group of men enters the cavern.

“Sir, Ma’am?” A male voice behind the glare of a flashlight addresses them. “We’re the Bells Cove Search and Rescue Team. We picked up the cave-in. Are you okay?”

Mulder shields his eyes from the beam and says “We’re FBI,” as though that explains their mutual nakedness in a cave lake.

The man lowers his torch and Scully floats behind Mulder. “Are you injured?”

“Far from it,” Mulder says and she knees him in the butt. He moves his hand back and catches her knee. “We were…uh…dusty…from the rock fall so we took advantage of the waters to…clean up.”

She moves his hand up to touch the still-sticky trail on her inner thighs, her still pulsing and slick labia, and hears him exhale. In the shimmering water she sees Mulder’s rounded ass and can’t hold in the sigh. Taking the waters definitely has its advantages.

“I see,” the man replies. “We do have trouble with kids coming in here looking for the Phantom of the Cave. But it’s just baloney. There’s no wailing woman down here. Only a dangerous attraction. We’ve often had to rescue them when their crazy stunts go wrong. But being FBI and all I imagine you two agents were just here doing your…FBI thing.”

There’s a couple of other men behind him and they’re standing, arms crossed, faces straight. Mulder clears his throat. “Our FBI thing…was to investigate the possible disappearance of a young couple.”

“I haven’t heard about that case,” the man says. “We’re usually first responders in the missing hiker or caver reports.”

“Some of our cases are deliberately low profile,” Mulder responds. Scully’s hands skim the tops of his thighs and she gives him a gentle squeeze. He hesitates a little but picks up his thread again. “You know, we keep them below the surface of public access due to their confidential nature. Not everything is for community viewing.”

The man nods. “I understand, Sir. We’ll just head back out now and wait further down the tunnel. We can accompany you back to the entrance when you’re…” he nods at their clothes piled on the ground…”ready.”

Pulling on dry clothes over wet skin is the least of their discomfort. Mulder is chuckling as he dresses but she feels the burn of humiliation over her damp chest and face. Caught in the act in an underground lake like a couple of teenagers. It’s the kind of date Mulder could only dream of. Before they head back to their rescue party, he squares his hands on her shoulders, and his wet hair flops over his face. His eyes sparkle like the cave walls and he smells faintly salty as he bends towards her. He kisses her gently.

“That was magical, Scully.”

She goes to respond but a loud moan interrupts her. It sounds very much like a groan of pleasure. Like her groan of pleasure at the peak of her climax and all the way out she wonders if there’s ever been a study conducted around sound waves being trapped in enclosed places.


End file.
